


Too Old for Fairytales (Heavy Crown remix)

by brawlingdiscontent



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Gen, Growing Up, Internalized Homophobia, Modern Royalty, Tabloids, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawlingdiscontent/pseuds/brawlingdiscontent
Summary: Growing up as a Genoshan prince isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially for Erik.





	Too Old for Fairytales (Heavy Crown remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sebastian2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Heavy Crown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257100) by [sebastian2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/pseuds/sebastian2017). 
  * In response to a prompt by [sebastian2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/pseuds/sebastian2017) in the [xmen_remix_madness2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmen_remix_madness2019) collection. 



When Erik is 6, he’s sitting on his nanny’s lap with a storybook. A fairytale.

He helps her turn the pages as she reads aloud in a syrupy voice. Being entrusted with the task doesn’t entirely appease Erik who is decidedly too old for such stories. He’s not a baby anymore.

“...and then the beautiful princess and the handsome prince were married, and they ruled the kingdom wisely, and in peace and prosperity, for the rest of their days. The end.”

He flips to the final page, and is suddenly drawn in. On the gilded page, the gold leaf setting off its vibrant colours, a radiant, golden-locked princess holds the hand of a curly-haired prince.

His nanny seems to catch on to his interest, and tickles his sides lightly as she responds.

“One day, Erik, you will marry a beautiful princess, and you'll rule over Genosha together. Wouldn’t you like that?”

He ignores her prodding attentions, focused on the illustration before him.

He doesn’t quite have the word for it, yet, but this is the moment when he first knows that he’s different. For his gaze lingers not on the delicate features of the princess, but on the boyish smile of her prince.

-

When he’s 9, his mutation manifests. He slips on the monkey bars and pulls the entire structure down with him when he falls.

As he lies there, stunned, among the twisted heap, his security team comes running. And just when he was hoping he’d finally started to blend in at his new school.

He regains consciousness in a deluxe hospital bed, hooked up to a dozen monitors with his mother crying over him.

The Doctor (private, of course--only the best for the Genoshan heir), looks sombre as he gives the diagnosis: “A mutant.”

Several months later the Daily Genoshan runs a royal special. He liberates a copy from some kids on the school yard who stand around it, giggling. He’s strictly banned from reading the tabloids, and nearby copies are usually confiscated.

The other kids have taken to calling him “the mutie prince.” He knows he could never get away with fighting them ("you're a prince, Erik", his father would scold, "you have to set an example"), so he settles for occasionally fusing their lockers shut. He refuses to report them or let the security team tell his parents. He doesn’t want them to move him somewhere even more secluded--all he wants is a normal life.

His mother tells him he should be proud to be a mutant. But he knows what people say about it behind her back. (“Poor Queen Edie," they whisper, “how does she cope, with a mutant for a son? The woman is a saint.” ( _She's Jewish, you idiots,_ he thinks furiously.))

The tabloid issue in his hands proclaims boldly in garish orange bubble-letters: “TOP 10 ROYAL SCANDALS!”

Its feature article opens with the lines: “ _Europe is atwitter with news of the manifestation of Genosha’s own Prince Erik as a mutant, but he’s got nothing on these scandalous royal affairs. Read on as we talk you through the top 10 royal shockers of the decade_.”

In between an infidelitous British Duke, and an embezzling Bahraini princess, number ‘three’ in the countdown is Prince Janos Quested: “ _this sultry stunner shocked the global community when he announced four years ago that he prefers the company of men--if you know what we mean. Fortunately, he’s far down the line of succession, and never likely to take the throne, keeping the Spanish royal bloodline secure._ ”

He reads the derisive tone, the bald amusement, the writer’s relief at the prince’s distance from power. And that’s when Erik learns that whatever he is, it’s worse than being a mutant.

-

When he’s 12, the dance lessons start.

His mother re-arranges her schedule so they can take them together, and though he's glad to have the extra time with her, it’s embarrassing to learn to dance with one’s mother as a partner, especially under the warm brown eyes of the dancing master’s assistant.

He’s just reached the spindly stage of puberty, and has trouble keeping his feet. _The waltz is a stupid dance_ , he thinks.

“Mausi, keep up,” the Queen teases him. “Don’t you want to be able to impress your future wife?”

He responds on instinct.

“Mutti, gross! I’ll never have a wife!”

When he realizes what he’s said he freezes up, as though he’s just revealed something damning. His hands twitch, yearning to curl up into fists, and he can hear his pulse thudding in his ears.

Her reaction, somehow, is worse than he could have imagined. She laughs.

“Oh, Erik, you won’t always feel that way. Just wait ‘til you’re a little older and girls start to catch your eye.”

His heart crumples in his chest, and he misses the next step.

“There now, Liebchen, don’t be discouraged,” she says, mistaking his stricken expression for frustration at his dancing progress. “You’ll get it. Let’s go again.”

It just reinforces what he'd already known deep down: Mama had handled his mutation, but a gay prince was something unthinkable...

\- 

When he’s 15, he meets Aleksander.

They exchange just a glance and Erik knows. The other boy is like him.

He’s part of a visiting retinue, the son of one of his parent’s friends. He’s Jewish, too, and more importantly, he also doesn’t want his parents to know about him.

He even likes Erik’s powers, expressing mild words of praise when Erik timidly bends a soda can for him.

They become friends, and then something beyond that.

They go on walks together, ducking into the trees on the palace grounds to hide from the bodyguards--convincing themselves they’d escaped when really security is just content to lose sight of them within the highly secured perimeter. It’s one of the happiest months of Erik’s life.

Once, in a copse of trees, they exchange a few, stolen kisses.

Then Erik feels it--a flash of metal, up in a tree.

Reporters are banned from the grounds, but are getting more and more adventurous. Just last week one was caught trying to scale the fence.

Lightening fast, he reaches out with his powers and pulls it forwards. Mind whirling with the possibility of press or blackmail, the disappointment of his parents and devastation of his people, he yanks hard on what he’s sure is a camera---

It’s a remote control metal plane, a toy of Aleks’ sister’s that must have got caught in the tree and was promptly forgotten there. The fuselage is dramatically warped now from the process of his hasty retrieval.

He stares at it for a moment, petrified, his heart still pounding. And then he slumps. He’d been so sure---

He crumples it up with his powers, and starts to walk away.

Aleks moves to stop him. “Erik--”

“We can’t see each other again,” he says, brushing past the boy, and pretending that the hurt in the other’s stare doesn't rip him up inside.

He can’t do relationships; it’s too dangerous.

\- 

When Erik is 19, he stands in his apartment, staring down at the note Charles left on his nightstand, now clutched in his hand.

 _Erik,_  
_I don’t mind keeping secrets. Or being one. I added my number to your phone while you showered. Give me a call if you’d like._  
_-C_

He leans against the wall.

“Fuck,” he says quietly.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Erik's backstory in 'Heavy Crown' broke my heart, so I decided to base a remix around that. Any/all emotional trauma I lay at sebastian2017's feet, to be patched up in forthcoming parts of the series.


End file.
